She’s good at calling it. Always has been. When that hour strikes, whatever time that may be, 8:3o, 9:00, 10:00 or 11:00, she packs it up. One hand pouring her wine into mine. The other clearing her plate and heading to the kitchen. Some quic clean up, with both hands and she is off. Up the stairs to bed. Making her self imposed curfew. And, although some nughts, most nights, she no longer sleeps the night through, she is just so Damon good at starting. Totally the kund of kid, that if she did that experiment, the one where they give you a marshmallow s as bd say you can eat it now, but if you wait you get two marshmallows later. She ms the kid that would have waited so long to eat the marshmallow, that the experiment facilitator after staring at the damn marshmallow for a week would have broken dvery convention of scientific practice, by not being able to take it anymore would have cracked, picked up rthe soft beautiful marshmallow and swallowed,and immediately feel bad about it,especially when she would have demanded to know where her marshmallow went because sure as hell been

Io there the night you before and she hadn’t granted anybody to permission to touch it, I am just the opposite. Before the plate with the marshmallow even the touches the hard oak table it would be disappeared

1 ladder. 4 stories. 58 rungs. 30 seconds to climb, he reckoned. 1 80 pound lab rod our eyes him with suspicion as he eyed the ladder, surely wondering why the fourth walk of the day had come to a pause; why at 13 minutes to 12 am, they have found themselves looking at ladder; a ladder of all things. I am 48!years old, he said, neither as a question nor as a statement, more an issuance of fact if one did have to describe it. 4278 that what it said beside the front door of the townhouse. 5 levels inside. 6 flights of stairs. Three bedrooms. Two bathrooms. Two car parking pad. Room for a third in the garage. He never seen the woman who lived there, her name was Elena, she was 62 years old. He had never seen the man either, George Frank, Elena’s brother, he was 68. They had lived together for 33 years. If he climbed the ladder, hoisted his 270 pound frame, off the ladder and onto the flat roof, At the top he reckoned he would have a 180 degree view of the neighborhood. He reckoned he would stand tall, fill his lungs with three breaths of cold night air, coughing as it scratched its way down his trachea.

He stoped and stared. It just wasn’t a site you see every day. And it’s not even day. In an hour and a half it will be midnight. But there it is. A ladder. And not just any ladder. A ladder that that starts in the driveway and finishes on the roof of ttownhouse complex, 4 stories high. He waited at the top of the driveway, confused as to why it was still there. How come they don’t take it diwn at night. Maybe somebody is still up there, he said. His breath, that thought, a cloud of steam that hung in the air, fast disappearing. The black Labrador, at the end of the red leash, looked up momentarily, and upon discovering that this talking had nothing to do with food, returns to sniffing the snow bank around the base of the telephone pole. He waited and listened. Only sirens wailing in the distance and the crunch of the hard snow under his posts punctuate the crisp evening air. Are you even allowed to leave it up like that over night, he said outloud again. This time the black lab didn’t look up, rather lifted his leg and peed on the pole.

He spent half the night looking at countries he could not visit. Not now. How could he? The world is not there. It may be again but who really knows. Day by day, he would tell people, taking it day by day. In the dark it’s the map of Europe that lights the room.his thumb hitting the soft touch keys of the keyboard. Google searching “Colmar France” and “best cities to visit in Germany” and top things to do in Bergen”. But no planes are flying there. May not be able to fly in country borders. And yet he types. Thinking the next list is the answer, just one more review to solidify all of his thoughts, one more blog post to wrap it in a pretty bow. Just one more and one more after that. Never enough, but it has to be. It has to stop. Sleep beckons. He puts the phone down on the bedside table. And closes his eyes.tries to relax. Shifts to his one side, then turns on the other, then back to his back. His phone now back in hand. Thumb banging on the letters. Best family attractions Dublin.

He heard it was lost. Saw it was lost, rather. If one was to get all technical about it. The poster. Of the list dog. The one that said do not approach. The one that said skittish may run away. The one that said “Hedi” at the top. The one that had great picture. Big poking up ears, a little too big for her head, black and brown fur, standing tall, looking straight into the camera, smiling, if that’s even possible for dogs to do. What I am I suppose to do if I see it. Ignore it. Shoo it away. Play dead. Stop drop and roll. There are limited good options he thought. Feed it maybe. Thinking about what he had in his pockets bybway of food should he indeed encounter her. A package of extra gum, spearmint, two squares left, one unwrapped Hershey’s kiss, that had been in his pocket since Christmas, and how would that work anyway. Let’s say he did see her. She’s gonna what, stand in the same spot while he fumbles with the wrapper, finally getting most of it exposed, beckoning her over, for a piece of chocolate, the one food item they say never ever, under any circumstances feed to a dog. And bubble gum? Jesus. It would have to be something else. There must be a better plan. He thought about just running at her maybe he could get a grip on her tail or one of her overgrown ears before have managed to turn to flee in the other direction. But how would get her home. Wrestle her to the ground. Have is own call 311 or 911, that’s a trick he hadn’t learned just quite yet. Scream as loud as he can, for what, for who, he had no idea. Maybe just hollar fire and see what happens.

You need to clear off the paperweights in your sons room. Yes, yes, I know. So by the end of the weekend you will have all the files off the machines? No, wait, should probably set expectations here. Expectations? Yes. You’re setting expectations. Yes, probably important. Okay then, heee is my expectation, by the end of the weekend you will have al the files off the machines. So there are lots of files on those machines, it’s not going to happen in one day. But you haven’t even started. I did the other weekend, you remember? I spent like 3 hours doing it. Did you delete any files? Yeah, what do you mean. I mean I watched you. Okay, so what? You doddle. Doddle, no way! Yes way! Your so slow, you look at all the pictures one by one, just save them or delete them it’s that simple. But I gotta see if, you know, there important worth saving. Fast, chop chop, get it done, you don’t do this at work do you? No. So why do it here? I think it’s different. It’s the same. You are such a hoarder. I am not, what do you mean? You sock drawer is a mess, socks underwear, deodorant, cologne, brochures, tape, papers. Are we still talking about the computers, or have we moved to a new subject? Same subject, you hoard files too. If you haven’t looked at them in years, you don’t need them. I’ll do it, I will, I am just saying. No more just saying, do it. I will, it will be great. It won’t be great, it’s what I wanted for two years. Oh, we also need more coffee from the basement.

He hesitated. A split second. The small move of shying away. Barley noticeable. Almost imperceptible. But there. I will come live with you, she said. He did not expect it. Not even a little bit. Well maybe just a little bit. But here it was. And maybe it wasn’t so much a hesitation as a flinch. Not dramatic. Not flamboyant or obvious as a left tackle leaving the line early, but still a flinch none the-less and, obviously not what she was expecting or maybe it was exactly what she was expecting but needed to ask anyway. Involuntary was the way he would describe it. His muscles betraying his desire not to hurt here. His silence, the knife. Her turning away for good. A blood trail home.

He wasn’t sure how it had started. The name that everybody called him. You don’t know, she asked. I don’t, he said. For real? She said. Her pale blue eyes, verging on gray if they were but shade lighter, searching his for a moment of hesitation, a sign of withdrawal, a symptom of evade. For real, he said, and meant it. It wasn’t a cool nickname he had given himself. It wasn’t short form for jack-shit. It wasn’t cruel, or homophobic, or misogynist, or cold hearted, or for that matter even fun. He couldn’t even remember when it first happened. Have you always been called thiss, She asked, her brain trying to expand, trying to let room for some sort of undrstanding. No, he said, not always. So when did it start, she asked. He closed his eyes. People always ask this question, and more times than not he just brushes it aside, but not tonight, not now. So when? When did it start? She asked againAnd no matter how hardship he thought, no matter how hard he tried tobrecolllect his perfectly normal, goddamn boring, lower middle class upbringing, there was never anything there. Not once. Not ever. Not a defining moment, not an shining bacon of an idea. He can’t even rememberi the first time the thought stirred in his brain. Like a large warm animal about to wake up from hibernation. “kiss me” he said. “What?!?” She said. “You heard me” he said. Did I now Galaxatron? Stop. Oh Galaxatron. I have been such a bad girl. Can you stop now? Not until you tell me. Tell you what. How you got the name? The name? Yes, the name. I told you , I don’ know, that’s the gods honest truth. Okay, she said, stepping out of it

He talked quietly, as if always sharing some piece of information he wasn’t suppose to have. Speak up, would you just? His parents used to say to him as a boy. We can’t, I can’t hear you, his teachers would say. And the doctor would look down his throat, and feel his vocal cords and send him for X-rays and MRIs and every time came back with the same result “excellent health. No obstructions, growths, deformities, atrophy of any kind. The psychiatrists with the comfortable sofas and offices in the high towers downtown said the same thing “no trauma. No disorders. No cognitive disabilities, decline, or impairment of any kind.” So he just continued to talk the way he talked,muted, hushed, with, if you didn’t know any better, conspiratorial under currents. Why did he have to change he started to wonder. If nothings wrong with me why do I have to change? He thought one day walking across the plaza in front of the university library. Hthevmie he thought about this the faster he was walking until he couldn’t not think about it any more and broke into a full sprint the last 200 meters to his residence. When he entered the conceriege greeted him by name “ hello Edgar. How is your evening?” Edgar nodded,, hello back, climbed the three flights of stairs to his floor, found his door five doors down the the hall. Upon entering the room, put his backpack on the floor, locked the door opened his window as far as it would go, filled his lungs with air and tried to scream.

It starts when the thought firms. A bit hazy at first. A silhouette in the fog. The shape of it apparent, the edges not yet formed. And it lingers. And you tell yourself you are stronger, tonight. You tell yourself, you are better than it tonight. You tell yourself that your really not even thinking about it all. Till the silhouette steps out of the fog. And it’s right in front of you. Stinking and sweating and full of callouses and scars. And then, even then, you tell yourself it will be ok, it’s no big deal. Tell yourself even if it does happen the earth will still spin, and tomorrow will still happen, and you have the whole rest of the week to be better. So shake it’s outstretched hands. Kiss it’s wretched lips full of worm holes and larva. Look it straight in the eyes, sockets filled with flame. You hug its body that’s all bones and spurs, put on your head it’s chest that’s cold as concrete and listen for a heartbeat, a pulse, a rythm of life that is not there. Not tonight. Not ever. And In it’s embrace you dance, slowly, into the darkness.